The ensemble NACHTMUSIQUE was formed in 1990 specially to perform Harmoniemusik of the late 18th century on period instruments. Its members are all specialists in the field, and play regularly with the best of the early music ensembles: Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Freiburger Baroque Orchestra, Anima Eterna, Orchestre des Champs-Elysées, London Classical Players, and many others; they also can be heard on numerous recordings. In addition to the music of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven—undisputed masters of the genre—Nachtmusique also perform the works of other less well-known composers such as J. C. Bach, Franz Krommer, Carl Maria von Weber, and Georg Druschetzky. To these can be added countless 18th- and early 19th-century arrangements of operas, symphonies, and oratorios by composers from Mozart and Beethoven to Rossini and Mendelssohn. Nachtmusique’s recordings of works by Mozart and Krommer on the Glossa label have received great critical acclaim.

DEBRA NAGY, taille d’hautbois, Baroque oboe, hailed for her “dazzling technique and soulful expressiveness” (Rocky Mountain News), is in demand as a soloist and collaborative musician on both coasts, performing with Baroque ensembles and orchestras in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and New York. She is the founder of Les Délices,an ensemble dedicated to chamber music of the French Baroque, and performs fifteenth-century music on shawms and recorders as a member of Ciaramella. Debra recently completed her doctorate in Early Music at Case Western Reserve University, where she directs the Collegium Musicum. A graduate of the Oberlin Conservatory, Debra was the first-prize winner in the 2002 American Bach Soloists Young Artist Competition, and received a Belgian American Educational Foundation Grant to support research and study in Brussels and Amsterdam. Debra has recorded for the Capstone, Bright Angel, Naxos, Hänssler Classics, Chandos, and ATMA labels.

LENA SUSANNE NORIN, alto, was born in Stockholm, Sweden, and has a repertoire reaching from the early Medieval to the late Romantic periods. She has toured and recorded with the medieval ensemble Sequentia since 1988, and has performed with many other well known early music groups, including Ensemble Gilles Binchois, the Ferrara Ensemble, Cantus Cölln, Das Rheinische Kantorei Köln, Tafelmusik, Chapelle Royale, Drottningholms Barockensemble, and the new trio Ulv, which performs Swedish medieval ballads and folk hymns. In 2002, she sang Erda in Wagner’s Das Rheingold at Folkoperan in Stockholm, and made her début at the Royal Opera in Stockholm the following year. She has also appeared with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, toured with Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, and often performed for Swedish radio—a recent broadcast was of Grieg’s Haugtussa. Since 2002, she has taught Baroque singing at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm.

PAT O’BRIEN, lute, cittern, has taught guitar, lute, and early harp in his native New York City for over forty years. Active as a soloist and accompanist on lutes, guitars, citterns, and theorbo, he has performed and recorded with the Harp Consort, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Baltimore Consort, The King’s Noyse, New York City Opera, at the Caramoor and Spoleto festivals, and the Boston and Utrecht Early Music Festivals. He serves on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music and both the State and City Universities of New York, and currently also works with the New York Continuo Collective, conducting weekly coachings in continuo practice and improvisation. For many years he has done remedial work with musicians’ performance-related injuries, and is very well known for his work reconstructing string players’ technique.

Formed in 1988 by the Early Music Network of Great Britain, THE ORLANDO CONSORT rapidly achieved a reputation as one of Europe’s most expert and consistently challenging chamber music ensembles. They have performed at all of Britain’s top festivals and have travelled extensively throughout Europe, North and South America, and the Far East. Their impressive discography includes a collection of music by John Dunstaple and The Call of the Phoenix, which were selected as Early Music CDs of the Year by Gramophone Magazine in 1996 and 2003 respectively; many of their other cds have been nominated for this honor. The Orlando Consort were joint recipients of the American Musicological Society’s prestigious Noah Greenberg Award in recognition of their work on the extraordinary techniques of 12th-century Aquitanian polyphony. The Consort’s performances increasingly embrace the spheres of contemporary music, jazz, collaborative projects, and improvisation. The next year sees the eagerly anticipated release of their recording of the Machaut Mass.

PALS CHILDREN’S CHORUS is dedicated to the transformation of children into performing artists.  With singing at its core, and training in drama and dance, PALS indelibly changes the lives of the children in our charge, building confidence, discipline and leadership, as well as a passion for music that will last a lifetime. The children of PALS have performed in dozens of collaborations with ensembles like the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston Pops, Cantata Singers, Back Bay Chorale, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, and Boston Philharmonic in venues including Symphony Hall, Carnegie Hall, and Tanglewood.  In 1999, PALS introduced the VOICES Concert Series to feature children as artists and celebrate their achievements of artistic excellence, and in 2000, PALS introduced the PALS Musical Philanthropy initiative, a series of benefit concerts that support important children’s causes throughout the Greater Boston area.  PALS’s relationship with the Boston Symphony Orchestra began in 1996 with FIRE, WATER, PAPER: A Vietnam Oratorio by Elliot Goldenthal.  Since that first collaboration, PALS has joined the BSO for over a dozen programs, including three in the 2006–2007 season also with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus: Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron and Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust, conducted by James Levine; and John Adams’s El Niño, conducted by David Robertson. In June 2005, members of the PALS Children’s Chorus appeared in the Boston Early Music Festival’s opera Boris Goudenow. The PALS Children’s Chorus was founded in 1990 by one of the country’s preeminent children’s conductors, Johanna Hill Simpson, now Artistic Director Emerita. Under her leadership, PALS earned a reputation as one of the finest youth ensembles in the country. The PALS web site is at www.palschildrenschorus.org.

French-Canadian baritone JULIEN PATENAUDE has performed leading roles in operas for Opera York, Opéra de Québec, the Orford Arts Festival, the Brevard Music Centre in North Carolina, Opera Garden in Aberdeen, Scotland, and across Canada with Jeunesses Musicales du Canada. His opera roles include Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Leporello in Don Giovanni, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, Don Alfonso in Cosi fan Tutte, Cyd in Albert Herring, the Father in Hansel and Gretel, Frank in Die Fledermaus, and Ben in The Telephone. He is equally at home on the concert stage. He is the winner of Radio Canada’s Young Artists competition, and has appeared in recital with the Talisker Players, the Aldeburgh Connection, Pro Musica, and the Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur. Much in demand as a soloist in concert works, Mr. Patenaude has sung for the Ottawa Choral Society, Quartango, l’Orchestre de la Montérégie, and l’Harmonie Vocale de St.-Hyacinthe.

FILIPA MARGARIDA DA SILVEIRA PEREIRA, Renaissance recorder, was born in Portugal in 1981. She finished her Bachelor in Recorder in 2005 at Escola Superior de Música de Lisboa, where she studied recorder with Pedro Couto Soares and chamber music with Stephen Bull. She has attended many early music masterclasses, working with Peter Holtslag, Richard Gwilt, Rainer Zipperling, Ketil Haugsand, Ana Mafalda Castro, Peter van Heyghen, and Kees Boeke. Filipa has played in concerts all over Portugal, including in Porto, Vila Real, Almada, Braga, Loulé, Tomar, Lisboa, and Faro; she has taught recorder in Tomar and Lisbon. She performs with The Royal Wind Music. With the recorder consort A Imagem da Melancolia, Filipa played a Fringe concert at the Utrecht Early Music Festival. In 2005, Filipa entered the Conservatory of Amsterdam, where she is studying the recorder with Paul Leenhouts.

PAUL PERFETTI, Baroque trumpet, holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin and The New England Conservatory of Music. His teachers included Charles Schlueter, modern trumpet; Friedemann Immer, Baroque trumpet; and Michael Colver, cornetto. He is a regular member of Boston Baroque, the Handel and Haydn Society, and Emmanuel Music. From 1988 to 2006 he was the principal trumpet of the national company of Les Miserables. He served as principal trumpet of the Virginia Opera, and has performed with the Boston Pops Orchestra, Boston Philharmonic, Boston Musica Viva, and Opera Company of Boston; early music groups include Aston Magna, Boston Bach Ensemble, Portland Baroque, Early Music New York, and Collegium Musicum Bach in Mexico. He has recorded with Boston Baroque, Aston Magna, and Boston Bach Ensemble. Mr. Perfetti has lectured on natural trumpets at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in conjunction with their Musical Instrument Collection, and is presently engaged to record some of the museum’s rare trumpets.

MARIE-ANGE PETIT, timpani, percussion, is Europe’s leading specialist in Baroque timpani and percussion. She appears and records often with, among many others, William Christie and Les Arts Florissant, Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques, Olivier Schnébelli and the Centre Baroque de Versailles, Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort, Jean Tubery and Ensemble La Fenice, and Philippe Herreweghe, with the Orchestra des Champs Elysées. She is playing in an experimental Quartet called “X improviso” mixing two musicians from jazz—Michel Godard and Gérard Marais—and two from the Baroque culture, the other being Sébastien Marq.  From 1979 to 1987, she was principal percussionist, then timpanist, with the Lille Opera.  Ms. Petit has published articles in the Dictionnaire de la musique en France au XIXe siècle (Dictionary of Music in France in the 19th Century), and given numerous lectures and masterclasses regarding period percussion performance and instruments.

JONATHAN PHELPS, dancer, has appeared in the Off-Broadway productions of Seduction, Confessions of Love, Torched, and Wabi. Regionally, he has performed in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Jazz on Jazz. Jonathan has participated in the workshops of Valentino: The Musical and Ain’t That a Kick in the Head. Mr. Phelps spent six years dancing with the acclaimed Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre; he has also danced with Donald Byrd/The Group and The Jamison Project in addition to countless freelance engagements internationally. Jonathan danced the leading role in the New York City Opera production of Carmina Burana. This past fall and winter Mr. Phelps toured through Europe as a featured performer in The Dancing Man, a tribute to Bob Fosse.

PHILIPPE PIERLOT, bass viol, was born in Liège, Belgium. After teaching himself the guitar and the lute, he turned his attention to the viola da gamba, which he studied with Wieland Kuijken. He is the director of the Ricercar Consort, and devotes most of his time to the seventeenth-century repertoire. He also plays contemporary works, many of which have been dedicated to him, and he is one of the few performers to play the baryton, a little-known instrument for which Haydn composed nearly 150 works. He has edited and revived a number of operas, including Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse a patria in a collaboration with William Kentridge and Sémélé by Marin Marais, and has produced a version of the partly-lost Bach St. Mark Passion. Since 2001, he has recorded chamber music, and as a soloist with Baroque orchestra, on the French label Mirare. He has recently recorded Haydn’s divertimentos for baryton on the Flora label. Philippe Pierlot teaches at the conservatories of The Hague and Brussels.

LE POÈME HARMONIQUE is a group of soloists, directed by Vincent Dumestre. Since it was formed in 1997 the ensemble has chosen to focus its artistic activity on music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The group’s comprehensive study of vocal and instrumental interpretation is enriched by the interaction between music and dance and literature: actors and dancers join the singers and musicians of Le Poème Harmonique in programs of chamber works, such as Le Ballet des Fées and Il Fasolo, and in large-scale stage productions, such Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, the famous comédie-ballet by Lully and Molière, and Le Carnaval Baroque, a very original show combining seventeenth-century Italian music with the circus arts. Le Poème Harmonique is subsidized by the French Ministry of Culture (DRAC Haute-Normandie), the Haute-Normandie Region, and the Seine-Maritime and Eure départements. It works in collaboration with the Research Group of the Versailles Centre for Baroque Music.

GILLES POIRIER, dancer, studied dance at the National Conservatory of the Region of Lyon and at the National Superior Conservatory of Music in Lyon before discovering Baroque dance in 1992 with the Ris et Danceries company and choreographers Francine Lancelot and Ana Yépes. From 1994 to 2004 he danced with L’Eventail, the Baroque dance company led by Marie-Geneviève Massé, performing in Europe, Canada, and the U.S. He has since worked with Ferroccio Soléri at the Théâtre Baroque de France led by Philippe Beaussant, at the Opéra Comédie in Montpellier, the Opéra Garnier in Paris, New York, and Brussels, and with Jean Guizerix at the Opéra Bastille.  In 2003, he choreographed Lully’s Les Fêtes de l’Amour et de Bacchus for the Simphonie du Marais directed by Hugo Reyne, and has collaborated with the Baroque ensemble of Limoges.  Mr. Poirier has been teaching dance since 2003. This year, he choreographed Caractères de la Danse by Jean-Féry Rebel for the students of Limoges Conservatory.

WILLIAM PORTER, organ, is Professor of Harpsichord and Organ at the Eastman School of Music, and teaches organ and improvisation at McGill University. From 1985 to 2002 he taught organ, music history, and music theory at the New England Conservatory in Boston.  He graduated from Oberlin College, where he also taught harpsichord and organ from 1974 to 1986. Widely known as a performer and teacher in the United States and Europe, he is a leader among keyboardists working towards a recovery of an historical and instrument-based approach to musical performance.  He is internationally recognized for his skill in a wide variety of improvisational styles, ancient and modern, and taught improvisation at Yale University between 2001 and 2005.  He has taught and performed at many major international festivals and academies, and at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists. He has recorded on historic instruments, old and new, for the Gasparo, Proprius, BMG, and Loft labels.

JOHN S. POWELL, Musicological Advisor, Professor of Musicology at the University of Tulsa, specializes in musical theater and opera of 17th-century France.  He has published numerous articles on the Molière-Lully comedy-ballets, on early French opera, on the choreographer Pierre Beauchamps, on Dancourt’s opera parodies, and is the author of Music and Theatre in France, 1600–1680 (Oxford University Press, 2000).  He has collaborated with various Baroque performance ensembles—William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Gary Cooper and New Chamber Opera Ensemble, Hugo Reyne and La Symphonie de Marais, and Martin Gester and Le Parlement de Musique—in productions of Charpentier’s Le Malade imaginaire, La Descente d’Orphée aux enfers, Le Mariage forcé, Andromède, Circé, Les Fous divertissants, and Grand Office des Morts.  His edition of the 1671 tragédie-ballet version of Psyché is forthcoming in the Oeuvres de Jean-Baptiste Lully (Olms Verlag, 2007).  The performing score for the 1678 opera version of Psyché will be available at www.personal.utulsa.edu/~john-powell/Psyche.

After studying the saxophone and earning a degree in musicology, HUGUES PRIMARD, tenor, received a first prize in singing at Centre d’Etudes Supérieures de la Renaissance. He has collaborated with many early music ensembles, including Doulce Mémoire, Le Poème Harmonique, Ensemble Clément Janequin, Diabolus in Musica, Ludus Modalis, La Chapelle Royale, Jacques Moderne, Elyma, and Huelgas Ensemble, as well as the following contemporary music groups: Les Jeunes Solistes, Les Eléments, and Accentus. He has also performed in Doulce Mémoire’s staged productions, including Rabelais, Commédia dell’arte, and Renaissance farces. He has recorded over thirty cds with these ensembles.

Baroque violinist CYNTHIA ROBERTS has served as concertmaster of the New York Collegium, Apollo’s Fire, Concert Royal, and the Dallas Bach Society, and performed as soloist and recitalist throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. She appeared as concertmaster of Les Arts Florissants for recent performances in Europe and the United States. She has performed with Tafelmusik, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, London Classical Players, Mostly Mozart Orchestra of Original Instruments, Aston Magna, Taverner Players, and the Handel and Haydn Society. Ms. Roberts recently recorded Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, Monteverdi’s Orfeo and solo works by Biber and Vivaldi with Apollo’s Fire, adding to her more than fifty recordings for Sony Classical, Analekta, BMG/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, and Eclectra. Ms. Roberts serves on the faculties of the University of North Texas and the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. She recently appeared with soprano Renee Fleming on Late Night with David Letterman, and can be heard as soloist on the soundtrack of Casanova, the film by Lasse Hallström.

NORBERT RODENKIRCHEN, flutes, lyre, was born in Cologne, where he studied both modern and Baroque flute at the Hochschule für Musik. He is an avant-garde composer, and has created many commissioned works for the Staatstheater Darmstadt, Theater Bremen, the Schauspiel Wuppertal, and West German Radio. Norbert Rodenkirchen’s primary interest has been the theory and practice of medieval music, and he is an internationally recognized performer on medieval flutes. He has been a member of Sequentia since 1996, and has toured around the world with such programs as Ordo Virtutum and Lost Songs of a Rhineland Harper. Norbert Rodenkirchen also concentrates on his solo programs Tibia ex tempore, with reconstructions of the medieval art of improvisation, and Flour de Flours, combining music by Guillaume de Machaut with modern compositions. He has played on numerous recordings for radio and cd. Since 2003, he has been the artistic director of Schnuetgen Konzerte: Musik des Mittelalters,the concert series at the medieval museum of Cologne.

KATHRYN ROTH, Baroque flute, a Rhode Island native, began her study of the Baroque flute while earning a bachelor’s degree in music and Renaissance studies from Brown University. Ms. Roth’s playing has been praised in the Boston Globe for “rhythmic point and subtlety” and for “lovely, graceful turns of phrase.” She has performed widely throughout the Northeast and in Europe, working with such groups as Benefit Street, the Bach Vespers, the Dryden Ensemble, Foundling, the Newport Baroque Orchestra, the Publick Musick, Arcadia, and the Boston Camerata. Ms. Roth also performs frequently with groups in Washington, D.C., including the Washington Bach Consort, Opera Lafayette, the Wolf Trap Opera Company, and Modern Musick, among others. She has recorded for Erato, Elektra Nonesuch, Northeastern, and Musica Omnia. Ms. Roth is a psychotherapist as well as a musician, and holds a master’s degree in social work from Boston University. She maintains her own practice in Providence.

THE ROYAL WIND MUSIC was formed by Paul Leenhouts in June 1997. The members, originally from England, Estonia, Germany, The Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain, all studied at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. The consort, a double sextet of Renaissance recorders, specializes in instrumental music written between 1500 and 1640. The Royal Wind Music has toured Europe extensively, receiving wide acclaim for their precision, expressiveness, and spirit. In March 2006 they were awarded the Noorderkerk Prize during the finals of the Vriendenkrans Competition at the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam. In April 2007 they gave four concerts at the Barcelona Early Music Festival. Their first cd, Alla Dolce Ombra, was recorded in April 2002 for the Spanish label Lindoro. The Royal Wind Music performs on instruments made by Adriana Breukink, modelled after the Bassano collection housed in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. Their collection ranges from the twelve-inch sopranino to the sub-contrabass measuring over ten feet. For more information, visit their web site at www.royalwindmusic.org.

GONZALO XAVIER RUIZ, oboe, Baroque oboe, is one of the North America’s most critically acclaimed and sought-after historical woodwind soloists. In recent seasons he has appeared both as principal oboist and concerto soloist with leading period instrument groups in America and Europe under conductors such as Andrew Manze, Nicholas McGegan, and Jordi Savall. His playing is featured on numerous recordings of solo, chamber, and orchestral repertoire. Equally accomplished on the modern instrument, he was principal oboist of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic and the New Century Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Ruiz is an acknowledged expert in historical reed-making techniques, and over two dozen of his pieces are on permanent display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
MONIKA RUUSMAA, Renaissance recorder, was born in Tartu, Estonia. She started her musical career under the guidance of Maire Tamm and Neeme Punder. After graduating from the Tallinna Muusikakeskkool in 2001, she continued her studies with Paul Leenhouts at the Conservatory of Amsterdam. Currently she is completing her master degree at The Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Sebastian Marq and Peter van Heyghen. In 1995 and 1997 Monika was awarded first prize and in 2001 won a special award for the most creative player at the Estonian Young Wind Instrument Players Competition. Ms. Ruusmaa is a member of several chamber music ensembles: she performed with the early music group Rondellus at The Ancient Nesvizh Festival in Belarus; with Ensemble Cecilia at the Viljandi Folk Music Festival Estonia in 2005; and with The Royal Wind Music she took part in The First European Recorder Festival and toured Austria, Spain, France, Germany, Estonia, and The Netherlands.

COLIN ST. MARTIN, Baroque flute, received his First Prize (Bachelor of Music) from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels, Belgium, under the tutelage of Barthold Kuijken. He continued his studies at the Early Music Institute at Indiana University, where he received a Master of Music degree with Performer’s Certificate.  Mr. St. Martin performs with the Opera Lafayette, Washington Bach Consort, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Smithsonian Chamber Players, New York Collegium, and Arcanum. Mr. St. Martin has participated in numerous music festivals in the U.S. and in Europe. His recordings may be found on such labels as Focus, Naxos, PBS, Newport Classics, Gaudeamus, and Centaur. He teaches early flute at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, and at the Timber Flute Festival in Elkins, West Virginia.

ISABELLE SAINT-YVES, bass viol, took up the ’cello at the age of seven at the Conservatoire in Caen. In 1994, she entered the Paris Conservatoire, graduating in 1998. From 1997 to 1999 she worked with the Quatuor Ysaÿe at the Conservatoire National de Région in Paris. Since 2000, she has appeared with many ensembles, including Le Capriccio Français in the St. John Passion, Le Poème Harmonique directed by Vincent Dumestre, Le Concert d’Astrée under Emmanuelle Haïm, Les Talens Lyriques directed by Christophe Rousset, and Les Paladins under Jérôme Corréas. During the 2001–2003 seasons she took part in Molière’s Le Malade Imaginaire at the Comédie-Française. Isabelle Saint-Yves has appeared regularly at major festivals with Ludmilla Berlinskaïa, Trio Ligeti, and many others. She has taken part in several recordings with Le Poème Harmonique, including Nova Metamorphosis, Quatre Chemins de Mélancolie with Daniel Brel, Plaisir d’Amour, a DVD of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, and original music for the movie Le Pont des Arts by Eugene Green.

TONI SALAR-VERDÚ, clarinet, first studied clarinet in his native Alicante before moving to Madrid and Salamanca, where he received the highest diplomas. Subsequently completing his study of historical clarinet at the Royal Conservatory of Music in The Hague, he began to specialize in period performance, and currently plays with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Concerto Köln, Anima Eterna, and Das Neue Orchester,as well as with Nachtmusique and several other chamber ensembles. Since 2000, he has taught at the Martín Códax International Music Festival in Cuenca. He lives in Berlin.

CAROLYN SAMPSON, soprano, was born in Bedford, studied music at the University of Birmingham, and lives in London. She made her opera début with English National Opera as Amor in L’Incoronazione di Poppea, returning for Pamina in Die Zauberflöte, and most recently, a highly-acclaimed interpretation of Handel’s Semele. Other opera highlights have included Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro for Opéra de Montpellier, First Niece in Peter Grimes at Opéra de Paris, Asteria in Tamerlano in Lille, Caen, and Bordeaux, and concert performances of Euridice and La Musica in Orfeo, Morgana in Alcina, and Julietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann. She has enjoyed collaborations with most top early music groups, the Orchestre des Champs Elysées, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Hallé, Rotterdam, and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestras, and RIAS Kammerchor. Carolyn Sampson has recorded Vivaldi, Zelenka, Monteverdi, Handel, Rameau, Lalande, and Mozart for Hyperion; Bach and Handel for BIS; Robert Johnson lute songs for Avie; Monteverdi’s Orfeo for Virgin Classics; and Gluck’s Paride ed Elena for DG Archiv. Future engagements include concerts with the Rundfunk Symphoniker Berlin, Britten Sinfonia, Academy of Ancient Music, and Bach Collegium Japan.

AARON SANTOS, commedia artist, is a recent graduate from Boston University with a PhD in physics.  His performance background includes acting, pantomime, dance, and commedia dell arte.  While at MIT, he concentrated in Theater Arts and was president and co-founder of MIMEtype, MIT’s first mime troupe. Over the last seven years he has worked extensively with I Sebastiani, “The Greatest Commedia Dell Arte Troupe in the Entire World.”  With the troupe, he has served as actor, choreographer, and most recently director for the troupe’s run at the Miami Improv Festival.  In addition to commedia, Aaron has also appeared at the American Repertory Theatre in their 2005 production of Dido, Queen of Carthage.

KARINA SCHMITZ, violin, viola, holds degrees from New England Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music.  Her early music studies began at Oberlin Conservatory with Marilyn McDonald, Miho Hashizume, and David Breitman.  She continued her training in the Apollo’s Fire Apprentice Program in Cleveland while serving as concertmaster of the Case Western Reserve University Baroque Orchestra.  Based in Boston, Ms. Schmitz is currently principal second violin of Philadelphia Baroque orchestra Tempesta di Mare, principal violist with Apollo’s Fire, and assistant-principal violist of the Carmel Bach Festival Orchestra; she has also played with the Trinity Consort in Portland, Oregon, the Rutland Baroque Orchestra in Vermont, the Dryden Ensemble, and the Harvard Baroque Orchestra. As a modern player, she serves as principal violist of the Gardner Museum Chamber Orchestra, and has held substitute positions with the Boston Symphony and National Symphony.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin native ERICA SCHULLER, soprano, is an active performer and teacher. She received her BMus. and performer’s certificate from the Eastman School of Music in 2006 with majors in vocal performance and music education. An avid enthusiast of both early and contemporary music, Erica has had the pleasure of working with many teachers and coaches specializing in these fields, such as Ellen Hargis, Paul O’Dette, Ray Nurse, Dominik Argento, Russell Miller, Stephen Kennedy, and Stephen Adby. Erica also sings with several early music ensembles, including the Christ Church Schola Cantorum in Rochester, New York, directed by Stephen Kennedy; and Eastman’s Collegium Musicum, directed by Paul O’Dette. Recent roles include Lazuli in Emmanuel Chabrier’s L’Etoile; Noémie in Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon;and Euridice in Luigi Rossi’s L’Orfeo and Psyché in Jean-Baptiste Lully’s opera Psyché, both performed at the Eastman School of Music and directed by Paul O’Dette. Erica will be enrolling in graduate studies for vocal performance this fall.

Founded in 1977 by Benjamin Bagby and the late Barbara Thornton, SEQUENTIA is among world’s most respected and innovative ensembles for medieval music. Under the direction of Benjamin Bagby, Sequentia can look back on three decades of international concert tours of over sixty innovative programs, a comprehensive discography spanning the entire Middle Ages, film and television productions of medieval music drama, and a new generation of young performers trained at professional courses given by members of the ensemble.  Sequentia has performed throughout Europe, the Americas, India, the Middle East, East Asia, Africa, and Australia, and has received numerous prizes (including a Disque d’Or, several Diapasons d’Or, two Edison Prizes, the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, and a Grammy nomination) for many of its thirty recordings on the BMG/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi and Marc Aurel Editions labels, which include the complete works of Hildegard von Bingen. The work of the ensemble is divided between a small touring ensemble of vocal and instrumental soloists, and a larger ensemble of voices for the performance of chant and polyphony. Their web site is at www.sequentia.org.

AARON SHEEHAN, tenor, is a highly sought after specialist in historical vocal performance. His voice has been described by Opera News as “sinuous and supple,” and the Boston Globe says he “sings with musical charm and vocal aplomb.”  He has appeared as soloist with New York Collegium, American Bach Soloists, Tragicomedia, Concerto Palatino, Handel and Haydn Society, Aston Magna Festival, Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Clarion Music Society, Boston Cecilia, American Opera Theater, Intermezzo Chamber Opera, and the Lyra Concert Baroque Orchestra.  His singing has taken him to many festivals such as Tanglewood, SFEMS, Regensburg Early Music Festival, Washington DC Early Music Festival, and the Boston Early Music Festival, where he sang the role of Ivan in Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow.  Aaron currently sings with Fortune’s Wheel, Blue Heron Renaissance Choir, and La Donna Musicale, and has been invited to sing next season with the Handel and Haydn Society, Tempesta di Mare, American Opera Theater, and the National Cathedral.

KERALA J. SNYDER, musicologist, is Professor Emerita of Musicology at the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. She has also taught at Yale University and the Hartt School of Music, worked as Senior Researcher at the Göteborg Organ Art Center, and served as organist at a number of churches. She studied at Wellesley College, Harvard Divinity School, and received a Ph.D. in Music History from Yale University. She is widely acknowledged as a leading expert in German Baroque music, particularly the music of Dieterich Buxtehude. She received the Buxtehude Prize from the city of Lübeck, Germany, in 1990. Her publications include the books Dieterich Buxtehude: Organist in Lübeck and The Organ as a Mirror of its Time: North European Reflections, 1610–2000; and numerous articles in journals and in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. She served as founding Editor-in-Chief of the on-line Journal of Seventeenth-Century Music from 1995 to 2003 and is co-editor of the on-line Düben Collection Database Catalogue at Uppsala University in Sweden.

JENNIFER STIRLING, viola, trained as both a violinist and a violist.  As a performer, she has traveled widely throughout Europe and the U.S.  Locally, she is a member of the Sarasa Chamber Music Ensemble, the orchestra of the Handel and Haydn Society, and is the principal violist with the New England String Ensemble.  A dedicated teacher and chamber music coach, she taught at Phillips Exeter Academy for fifteen years.  She holds a large private studio of teenagers and adult students, and is on the faculty at Concord Academy and the New England Conservatory of Music Preparatory School.  An avid chamber musician, she serves as a board member for the Amateur Chamber Music Players (ACMP), which supports and promotes the enjoyment of chamber music for players of all ages in the U.S. and abroad.

EYAL STREETT, bassoon, studied bassoon in Israel, subsequently moving to Holland to specialize in historical bassoon at the Royal Conservatory of Music, followed by the Civica Scuola di Musica in Milan. In the recent past he has toured and recorded with some of leading early music ensembles, such as the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Freiburger Barock Orchester, La Petite Bande, Les Talens Lyriques, and the Nederlandse Bach Vereniging. In addition, he performs frequently with various chamber music ensembles, including Nachtmusique, Rubato Appassionato, and Balthazar.

MELINDA SULLIVAN, Assistant Choreographer, Ballet Mistress, Baroque dancer, has performed in several Boston Early Music Festival productions, and serves as ballet mistress and assistant choreographer for its operas. She graduated from Boston Conservatory, and has established herself as a musical and theatrical performer. Her long career in modern and historical dance has taken her all over the United States and Europe. She teaches Movement and Dance in the opera department at New England Conservatory (NEC), where she has developed a unique program for singers. Her recent choreography includes the English masque Britannia Triumphans by William Lawes at Yale University, and Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld for New England Conservatory Opera Theater. She was the assistant director for NEC’s double bill of Dido and Aeneas and Milhaud’s Misfortunes of Orpheus. She also teaches at St. Mark’s School Summer Music Institutes in Massachusetts.
 
PETER SYKES, harpsichord, is Associate Professor of Music and Chair of the Historical Performance Department at Boston University, where he teaches organ, harpsichord, performance practice, and continuo realization. He is also a member of the faculty of the Longy School of Music, the New England Conservatory, and Music Director of First Church in Cambridge. He performs extensively on the harpsichord, clavichord, and organ, and has made ten solo recordings of repertoire ranging from Buxtehude, Couperin, and Bach, to Reger, Hindemith, and his acclaimed organ transcription of Holst’s The Planets. He also performs and records with Boston Baroque and Aston Magna, and is a founding board member and current president of the Boston Clavichord Society.

KAJ SYLEGÅRD, dancer, has been working in the field of Early Dance and Music since 1991. He is a graduate of the University College of Dance in Stockholm and of the Stockholm Royal Academy of Music. His main teacher has been Jane Gingell, director of the early dance group Timedance from London. At present, he regularly gives lectures and teaches dance at the University College of Dance and at the Royal Ballet school in Stockholm. As a performing member of Timedance, his many appearances include a Monteverdi program at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, a Victorian Pantomime at Kensington Palace in London, and programs at the Swedish Baroque Festival in Malmö. He has appeared with Stephen Stubbs’s Tragicomedia, Philipp Pickett’s New London Consort, Simon Murphy’s New Dutch Academy, and in the Boston Early Music Festival opera productions of Lully’s Thesée in 2001, Conradi’s Ariadne in 2003, and Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow in 2005.